Our people
Staff
Our staff come from Birkbeck's School of Psychological Sciences, the Birkbeck Business School and Genius Within CIC. We share a passion for facilitating inclusive workplaces where neurodiverse individuals are supported to maximise their potential.
NANCY DOYLE, Visiting Professor - Co-Director
- Nancy Doyle is a Visiting Professor at Birkbeck and a Chartered Psychologist in organisational and occupational psychology and the founder and owner of Genius Within CIC, a social enterprise dedicated to facilitating neurodiversity inclusion. Nancy is a consultant, coach and delivers workshops for clients in finance, technology and defence, supporting them to create inclusive workplaces where all neurominorities are able to reach their full potential.
PROFESSOR ALMUTH MCDOWALL - Co-Director
- Professor Almuth McDowall is a Professor of Organizational Psychology. She has been working closely with Nancy since 2013 and is committed to facilitating neurodiversity and neurodifference at work in the context of finding more humane and inclusive ways of working. Her doctoral students have been working on relevant topics including coaching as a reasonable adjustment for dyslexia, supporting ADHD in the workplace and finding out what support individuals on the autistic spectrum need to flourish to their full potential.
Lizette Dodds - Research Centre Co-ordinator
External and Internal Associates
Meg Kiseleva
- Meg is a systematic reviewer in the Specialist Unit for Review Evidence (SURE), Cardiff University. She produces systematic and rapid reviews and other forms of evidence synthesis on health and social care topics. Previously, she worked as a research assistant at the Centre for Neurodiversity at Work.
Harriet Tenenbaum
- Harriet’s main line of research focuses on children’s discrimination in everyday situations, investigating how children are embedded in social systems in which varying levels of discrimination occur at the socio-cultural level (e.g. religious laws, state single-gender schools) and the microsystem of everyday conversations (e.g. parents explaining science to boys more than to girls). Harriet’s work is unique in combining cognitive domain and socio-cultural theories to understand how children negotiate discrimination, rights, and politics daily in relationships.
Alexandra Beauregard
kevin Teoh
PhD students
Ben Morris
- Ben’s research is looking at the extent to which the traditional triad job selection process (CV, interview, references) hinders job seekers to access employment. This study will focus on finding the perfect 'fit' and how, when done correctly, this can benefit both the neurodifferent individual and the organisation. Finding the right 'fit' for a company can improve its employees' health and happiness. Ben’s research will highlight the benefits and advantages of hiring a neurodifferent person from the employer's perspective and will concentrate on the methods used to select applicants in the traditional three-tiered recruitment process.
Merry Scott Jones
- Currently at the end of the second year of her PhD, Merry's research is focused on exploring the impact of social movements on the discursive construction of equality, diversity and inclusion within the Civil Service.
Aishwarya Srinivasan
- Aishwarya is a PhD student in Organisational Psychology and a recipient of the T Ritchie Rodger Research Foundation PhD scholarship. Through the course of their PhD project, Aishwarya aims to evaluate the role of coaching as career support and reasonable adjustment for ADHDers. Aishwarya's research interests include neurodivergence and inclusive careers, coaching, and mental health and systemic support in the workplace.
Greg Swaysland
- Greg is currently undertaking a PhD in Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck. Greg is severely sight impaired and also lives with Dyslexia and ADHD, all of which were discovered later in life. Whilst these conditions present challenges, without them he would not have pushed himself to work towards a PhD and pursue a career in Psychology research, therefore he views them as the best things to happen to him.
- Greg’s research focuses on understanding the commonalities in how individuals experiencing different types and onsets of disability develop the self-belief to succeed in employment, sustain a career and the roles of others in these processes. Greg’s background is in engineering, and he has always worked in organizations with mature governance systems. He has also travelled to 90 countries throughout his career.
Uzma WaSeem
- Uzma is a registered practitioner psychologist and is undertaking the Professional Doctorate in Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck. She is currently carrying out an extensive review of the academic literature to find out what is known about organisation-led interventions to develop neurodiverse minority groups. She is particularly interested in identifying and examining what is practically applied in the workplace to promote employee engagement and career development for neurodivergent knowledge workers. Using a strengths-based paradigm, Uzma hopes to conduct neurodiversity employability and career development research to establish how employment strengths specific to neurodivergent workers can be made more visible, comparable, and honed in on to help enhance their occupational success, career opportunities, and career progression.
Advisory Board
Our Advisory Board is multidisciplinary, includes practitioners and academics with researchers working from a variety of paradigms.
We are committed to 'nothing about us without us' so that our research and the strategic direction of our centre are informed by lived experience. We include a majority representation of neurominorities as well as diverse intersections across race and ethnicity, culture, class, gender, age and LGBTQIA+.
We review board membership every two years to adapt and respond to the community that our research serves. We currently lack representation from the trans and non-binary community and would welcome enquiries.